


These Masks We Wear (I'll Let You Look)

by ArwenLune



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Community: avengerkink, Gen, The Avengers do Publicity, kinkmeme fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 18:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/612924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/ArwenLune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for <a href="http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/11264.html?thread=25783296#t25783296">my own prompt</a>: It takes a while for Natasha to get comfortable enough around the Avengers to let them see who she is when she isn't being the Black Widow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Masks We Wear (I'll Let You Look)

Tony wasn't surprised when he was the only one comfortable in a suit. They were at a Charity Ball, the kind where people had paid a fortune to eat fancy food and schmooze with people who would rather be eating shawarma. Like the Avengers. Well, two-thirds of the Avengers, because Bruce got a get-out-of-stressful-events-free pass, and Thor was conveniently in Asgard after he'd realised that a ball bore little resemblance to an Asgardian feast.

 

It was exactly as these things usually were. Red carpet - Natasha _killed_ it - people mostly present to be seen, acceptable booze in small glasses, smalltalk about Doing Good.

 

And, well. His teammates in fancy clothes. It was a sight to be seen, if not for the usual reasons of gorgeous people in high fashion.

 

Steve felt visibly constricted and ill at ease even though his suit had been expertly tailored - though it was probably at least as much that he didn't like public events. USO publicity he could do, he'd said - but this wasn't about Captain America, this was about Steve Rogers. The fancy hall was full of people he didn't know but who apparently knew all about him, and if they weren't fawning over him in mortifying ways they were prone to asking him uncomfortably personal questions about how he was 'settling in' in this new time.

 

("When you run out of platitudes, just tell them you have discovered the wonders of internet porn," Clint had recommended. Cap had actually looked like he was considering it for a moment, but he might have been doing that to see Clint choke on his beer. Cap could be sneaky that way sometimes.)

 

Clint hated being in the public eye even more, didn't like being surrounded by crowds, and visibly loathed the stiffness of his suit jacket. Tony was pretty sure Clint hadn't talked to anybody but the team and some of the present SHIELD agents all night, and then he'd disappeared for hours. Natasha had taken that with vaguely amused acceptance and a head jerk toward the mezzanine, indicating that Clint was up there, Keeping An Eye On Things.

 

Whatever, Tony could pick up the slack. He didn't really enjoy these kind of events, but he _was_ used to them, and he could schmooze with the best of them, even if Natasha did sneakily manoeuvre him into drinking more water than booze.

 

Natasha stole the show, not like a cat burglar, but brazenly out in the open, like somebody completely comfortable as the centre of attention. She was in a slinky floor-length gown with a thigh high slit, a complicated updo, and wearing a fortune worth of diamonds lent to her by the main sponsor of the event. She was also using her crazy ninja skills to balance on a pair of shoes even Pepper might have admitted were beyond her.

 

Tony knew perfectly well it wasn't her ordinary mode to smile like _this_ and angle her body like _that_ and put people at their ease around her, but she did it so well that it was hard to remember that she was so much more than a beautiful woman. That there was a whole other Natasha, who ghosted around air vents and ate pizza in Coulson's ancient Army Rangers hoodie and beat up her team members on the mat and closed an intergalactic portal.

 

She'd mostly stayed with Cap throughout the night, smoothing conversations along with practised ease.

 

It was all over now though. The limo was there, and the four of them strode down the red carpet, paparazzi trying to get some incriminating 'looking the worse for wear' photos.

 

For once Tony thought he was okay. He'd loosened his tie, and his hair was probably a little messy, but he was only a little buzzed. He kept up a steady stream of conversation - well okay, monologue really - of speculation about what kind of liquor the mystery bonbons had contained. Clint looked like he needed the distraction, glaring at the paps like he was a bodyguard.

 

Cap looked a little flustered by all the lenses and the paps shouting stupid things to get his attention, but Natasha was at his side, smiling graciously, tugging him to a halt to pose for a few seconds. They looked good together, at ease with each other in a way Tony knew Cap wasn't with any other woman.

 

Presumably because no other woman had ever threatened to knee him in the face unless he got over his can't-hit-women thing and started sparring with her in earnest.

 

He had his large hand comfortably at her narrow waist, and she was pressing close for the photo, flirty and playful in a way that made Cap grin down at her.

 

They'd be all over the gossip blogs tomorrow, but they'd focus on her, which is probably what she was going for.

 

"Good evening, sir?" Happy said, holding open the door of the limo.

 

"Excellent," Tony replied as Clint dove in headfirst like he was taking cover from enemy fire. Tony followed him into the car with more dignity, and then held out a hand to help Natasha in. She flashed a generous - and carefully calculated, he had no doubt, because she was a ninja - amount of thigh for the waiting paps. Then Cap settled in next to her, and the door closed. 

 

"Bozhe moi," Natasha moaned, face relaxing into something much more like her real self. She sank into the limo's comfortable leather seats and put her feet in Clint's lap. He immediately started working on the clasps of the ridiculous shoes.

 

"Are your feet hurting?" Cap said, surprised, and she shot him look that was a fond 'Captain Obvious!'

 

Because of course they were hurting, she was just good enough to not let it show.

 

Clint pushed the button to roll the window down. It brought in the noise of the late crowd - they were still in front of the venue, Happy and the SHIELD agent riding shotgun just now getting settled. Then, as the limo began to move, Clint took the shoes off of Natasha's feet and in one fluid motion tossed them out the window.

 

"Clint!" Natasha exclaimed as the window rolled shut again. She sounded half incredulous, half laughing, and Tony thought it was the first real sound she'd made all evening.

 

"Let somebody auction them off for charity. Make some rich foot fetishist happy."

 

Tony snorted, and Cap looked vaguely scandalised.

 

Clint grinned, leaning forward to shrug out of his suit jacket. He unceremoniously tossed it on the floor of the limo, and Tony and Steve simultaneously reached for it, both appalled at the treatment of the garment. When he sat back up, Tony saw that Natasha had started to pull pins out of her hair. There were a lot more than he'd expected. It had looked like it defied gravity without help.

 

"Help me out?" she asked Cap with a half smile, turning the back of her head toward him.

 

"Um.." Cap raised his hands up to her hair, and then stilled. "What am I doing?"

 

"There's a clasp close to my scalp, could you undo it please? You don't have to be that careful, I don't break."

 

Tony grinned at Cap's expression of first concentration, then horror when he opened the clasp and an entire chunk of hair was left behind in his hands.

 

"Relax, it's a hairpiece," Clint grinned. 

 

In the movies the femme fatale undoes her hair and it tumbles down, smooth and shiny, into a perfect style.

 

But these were not the movies. Natasha reached back and yanked out more pins and small clips, undoing what looked like two hours worth of hair engineering work, then bent forward and scrubbed her fingers over her scalp. When she sat back up it was a halo of messy hair, parts of it stiff with hairspray.

 

Tony couldn't help his snort. She'd smoothed it down a little, but it still looked like bed hair.

 

"What? It hurt," she shrugged. She dug in her tiny, ridiculous purse and found a hair elastic to tie back her hair.

 

"Drivethrough?" Clint asked her, and on her nod, turned to Happy. "Drivethrough."

 

Tony grinned, and a few minutes later they were working their way through a pile of fast food. Natasha, messily eating fries with her fingers, looked the most alive she'd looked all day, and Tony was amused to see Steve see it too.

 

By the time they rolled out of the limo and into the Avengers Tower lift, Clint was telling them about the illicit meeting between two high society – and very much not married to each other – members he'd overheard. Natasha licked the salt from her fries off her fingers, and Steve's shoulders had settled into their relaxed set.

 

Tony realised with something of a shock that Natalie  Rushmanhad been on Steve's arm tonight, or perhaps it had been one of her other personas.

 

But _Tasha_ was the woman standing in the lift with them on bare feet and with messy hair, her 10 000$ dress an annoyance waiting to be traded for sweats and fuzzy socks. He smiled to himself.

 

She noticed and raised an eyebrow at him.

 

"I'm glad you're... at home with us," he said, which wasn't quite what he'd meant, but she seemed to understand anyway, and flashed him a tiny grin before taking Steve's hand and dumping a couple million worth of diamonds into his palm.

 

"Um, thanks?" Steve blinked.

 

"Can you take care of those? I'm gonna go change out of this ridiculous dress," she said with an amused, open quirk of her eyebrows, and brushed past him out of the lift and to her apartment. "Movie night later, right?" she called over her shoulder.

 

He caught a glimpse of Clint's grin and realised the other man had known this for a long time, but that she hadn't really shared it with the rest of them before now.

 

"Yeah, definitely movie night," Tony  nodded, and grinned. 


End file.
